Finding out what makes you happy, creating happiness and learning how to be happy, healthy and wise, is the purpose of personal and spiritual development.

One of the keys to happiness is the ability to experience emotional equilibrium. Happy people feel their feelings. This helps them to rebalance their emotions. Happy people allow themselves to feel their positive and negative feelings. They admit to both in equal measure.

Imagine a set of scales.

On one side you have a certain amount of negative energy, and on the other you have the same amount of positive energy. This represents a state of emotional equilibrium.

Happy people act on their positive energy. They acknowledge their negative energy so that the intensity of it may be redirected into positive actions. Instead of being destructive, they know how to put their negative energy to constructive use. Here are some of the ways they do that:

Art, hobbies or creative pursuits,

Participating in competitive sports

Regular exercise

Humour or Laughter Therapy

Watching Comedy Movies and Shows

Music

Dancing

Movement Therapy

Singing, chanting and toning

Storytelling

Reading poetry and stories out loud

Journaling

Letter writing

Developing and Improving Communication Skills

Grief Counselling

12 Step Programs

Stress Management

Anger Management

Forgiveness Therapy

Emotional Release Therapy

Somatic Therapy

Cognitive Therapy

Precognitive Therapy

Voice Dialogue Process

When something upsets you and you don’t allow yourself to feel mad about it, then you are giving yourself permission to go mad because of it. There is a tendency for spiritual aspirants to avoid their negative thoughts and feelings. They berate themselves when they are fearful, angry, bitter or enraged. This type of denial of human feelings is known as spiritual bypassing, a type of self inflicted spiritual madness. It is a term coined 30 years ago by John Welwood, psychotherapist, teacher, and author, www.johnwelwood.com

Spiritual bypassing avoids negative feelings because they are negative and, according to many spiritual aspirants, spiritual people are supposed to be positive, joyful and enlightened in the present moment. In other words, spiritual aspirants must be happy all the time. The Buddha may have achieved this state, but over the last several thousand years, very few have done so.

While some spiritual aspirants may consider themselves to be spiritual beings, they seem to have forgotten they are having a human experience. Supressed feelings tend to make their way to the surface of your life at the most inappropriate times. The cracks begin to appear because of an increase in underlying emotional pressure. You might explode in a temper, taking it out on those around you, leaving you and others wondering, “Where did that come from? Why can’t I control myself better? Was that really me?”

Feeling is healing when it is put to good use. You have to admit that you are upset about something before you can move on from it. When you develop the courage to own your very human nature it will strengthen your spirit, not weaken it.

Transforming your negative energy into positive forms is healthy for your body, soul and spirit. Others around you will also benefit from your constructive, instead of destructive, use of energy. By transforming negative energy into a more positive expression, you can train yourself to reach a place of emotional equilibrium, so that it becomes your natural, spiritual state of being.